History behind the Geneva walkout

Seumas Milne really misses the point when he asks what relevance an "all-white boycott" had in Geneva (Comment, 23 April). He might just as well have asked what relevance does a UN with a built in anti-Israel Afro-Arab majority which constantly ignores the misdemeanours of any other state have.

But that aside, the reason for the boycott was that it was clear that the conference would again focus on Israel-bashing rather than concentrate on the very issues Milne rightly highlighted such as "rampant Islamophobia, resurgence of antisemitism and scapegoating of migrants in their countries over the last decade". It was clear from the pre-conference debates, headed up by countries with poor human rights records and well-documented anti-Israel bias, that Durban II would follow the same pattern as Durban I and become racist itself, rather than anti-racist.

The original boycott was not a show of support for Israel, more an expression of disgust at the hijacking of an important conference that should have played a major role in combating racism, but instead openly promoted it. And the subsequent walkout was a clear demonstration against the red carpet treatment given to a man whose rhetoric, behaviour and Holocaust denial is a threat to the world.Joy WolfeCheadle, Cheshire

Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust deserves only to be ignored, although unfortunately it does ensure, with the predictable response of the western leaders who walked out of the convention, that the indications of racism in Israel's treatment of Palestinians will not be addressed in any way.

However, for Ian Black (Man with a pretext for controversy, 21 April) to say that Ahmadinejad's comments "may sound unremarkable to Arabs and Muslims" is both inaccurate and somewhat patronising. Palestinians and Muslims with whom I have had contact, both in the West Bank and here, and whose writings I have read, are of course concerned with Palestinian suffering. They are also knowledgable about both the Holocaust and the persecution of Jews throughout the ages, and they condemn it out of hand. They just don't quite understand why the Palestinians should pay for the sins of Europe.

The piece also omits - and admittedly it is a very potted history - the betrayal of the Palestinians by Britain, which, having promised the Palestinians their own land in Palestine, went ahead with the Balfour declaration in 1917.Sylvia CohenLondon

"Nobody is going to get anywhere discussing 1948," states your leader writer (21 April). This misguided view will frustrate any effort at finding a solution. The basis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not "the here and now", as you suggest, but the circumstances of Israel's formation. It was inevitable that creating a state exclusively for one religiously/racially defined group, Jews, would disadvantage non-Jews. This essentially racist thinking was behind the Palestinian expulsions ever since 1948 and the continuing Israeli obsession with demography.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's UN speech on 21 April struck many as obnoxious, but in terms of understanding the 1948 roots of the Middle East conflict he was spot on. Vilifying him may feel good, but it is a diversion form the real issue. Ghada KarmiLondon

However we may deplore the tone of President Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN conference on racism, it is difficult to deny the principal facts that he presented.

In 1956 David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, told Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress: "If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country ... There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?"Geoff SimonsAuthor, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine